


The Thing About Cole

by thundercaya



Category: L.A. Noire
Genre: F/M, M/M, Restlessnes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-05
Updated: 2013-12-05
Packaged: 2018-01-03 14:10:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1071375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thundercaya/pseuds/thundercaya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stefan reflects on Cole’s tendency to stray.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Thing About Cole

The thing about Cole is that he’s never happy.

That’s not quite right. The thing about Cole is that he never stays happy. Not for long. Something’ll come along that he can grab onto and feel good about for a little while, then it fades away and he has to find something new. It’s obvious enough in his professional life. Solving a big case’ll have him feeling pretty good for a while, but then he has to solve another one, and another one. It’s our job, sure, to solve cases, but the day to day ones don’t do anything for him. He needs big fish more and more frequently to feel like he even deserves to be on the boat. It’s the same with promotions, though at least those sustain him longer. He’s got a sort of a restless spirit, and if he’s not moving, then he’s not happy.

His personal life isn’t much different.

I don’t know much about his romantic history before he got married. I’d guess he was in and out of relationships as much as any teenager, but at that phase of your life it’s normal. At some point you’re supposed to pick one person to stick with and settle down. That’s what everyone tells you, and that’s what Cole tried to do.

But it didn’t work. How could it? It’s against his nature. He got restless, bored, something—I never really pried—but bottom line, he wasn’t happy. He went to that woman. The singer. The junkie. Elsa. I don’t know what she did for him specifically—like I said, I didn’t pry—but she was something other than what he’d had before, and for a while she made him happy. Then of course the affair came out, he got demoted, and his family didn’t want anything to do with him anymore. He’d lost everything for this woman, and you’d think after having through go through all that to be with her, he’d want to stick around. Well, he did for a while, then he must have gotten those stirrings again. Or different ones. Because this time they brought him to me.

I wasn’t expecting it, to be honest. I sort of had a thing for him, from back when we were working together, but I never thought anything would come of it, not after all this time, and especially since his excursion into infidelity had been made in the arms of a woman and not of a man, the way you’d expect from a closet case. Maybe it was only when he had nothing to lose that I was worth the risk. Still, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want it, and I wasn’t about to say no.

Maybe I thought it would be different. Maybe I figured he couldn’t make things last before because what he wanted was to be with a man, and now that he was, it would work. After all, this time he’d ended the previous relationship before moving on. But it was arrogant of me to think I was better somehow, that I was more worth holding onto. I’m not any better, and I don’t make him happy anymore.

I wonder what it was like for her, for the singer, knowing he was going to come to me. She had to have known, because I do. I know he’s going to go to Jack Kelso.

I’d never heard of this guy until the whole Elysian Fields thing. He’s been kind of a big deal since then, but it turns out he was a big deal to Cole even before that. Cole never talked about the war before, but it’s been coming up more often lately. Because Cole’s war experience is tied up with this guy’s, and this guy seems to be finding his way into our conversations no matter how much either Cole or I try to avoid it. I guess I can’t really blame him. What kind of history do we have? A bunch of car wrecks and maybe a big fish or two. These guys fought side by side in an enemy country for the freedom of ours. I can’t compete with that.

So I’m not going to. When Cole’s ready to leave, I’ll let him. I’ve considered beating him to the punch, showing him the door before he goes for it himself. But I’m not going to do that either. Just like him, I never stay happy for long, and right now, this is the closest thing to happiness I’ve got.


End file.
